The Orange Bowl goes (Cee Lo) Green

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(Mike Coppola, Getty Images…)

December 29, 2011|By Ben Crandell, Staff writer

This year's Orange Bowl pits football teams from Clemson of South Carolina and West Virginia University (of West Virginia) against each other Jan. 4 at the former Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami Gardens, and you might assume that the associated hoopla that the game typically brings would be tempered to meet the traditional tastes of fans from these two unremarkable states.

And you'd be wrong.

The second annual Orange Drive Miami Beach Music Festival runs Friday-Sunday with a remarkably ambitious lineup of pop acts — including Cee Lo Green, Pete Wentz, Ne-Yo, Jermaine Dupri and DJ Sam Ronson — performing on a new state-of-the-art amphitheater built on the sand off Ocean Drive between Seventh and Ninth Streets. (Orange Drive is "an intellectual property developed by Union Square Agency, the Orange Bowl Committee and the City of Miami Beach.")

Saturday 9 p.m.-2 a.m. : DJ Irie, My Electric Heart and Jason Derulo. A performance by Ne-Yo leads into the New Year's Eve countdown and fireworks, followed by a DJ set from Jermaine Dupri.

Sunday 6- 10 p.m.: Sam Ronson, Cobra Starship and Cee Lo Green.

Tickets start at $64.20 for a single-day ticket, $150 for a three-day pass via Ticketmaster outlets.

On Tuesday from 6 to 10 p.m., the official Orange Bowl pep rally will be held on the Orange Drive concert site, with cheerleaders and team marching bands performing in advance of a concert by country star Travis Tritt. Tickets: $29.96-$40.

Info: http://www.orangedr.com.

More Orange

The Orange Bowl also spreads its influence north with the Fort Lauderdale Orange Bowl Downtown Countdown, the city's annual free New Year's Eve celebration that typically draws tens of thousands of party people to Southwest Second Street downtown from 4 p.m. to 3 a.m. The celebration, one of the biggest in the state, city officials say, begins with family events from 4 to 8 p.m., including an early ball lighting countdown at 7 p.m. Grown-up fun then takes hold, with a beer garden, food court and sounds from Groove Line, Big City Dogs and Tuxedo Jesus providing the mood music for the midnight ball drop. Info: http://www.fortlauderdale.gov, 954-828-5363.